Wednesday, April 25, 2012

#HAWMC - Day 25 - Third Person

Think of a memory you have – and write to recreate it. But, inside of going into it as yourself, go into the story as a narrator. Describe your memory using the third person as if you were a character in the story instead of the one telling it. As you write, use as many sensory images (sights, sounds, textures, etc) as you can. Don’t use “I” or “me” unless you include dialogue in your memory.

The familiar strains of a beautiful song ran through her head. "Oooohhh sometimes... I get a good feeling. Yeah." The cool night air played against her sun-burn skin. "I get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before, oh, no. I get a good feeling, yeah. The song had been running through her head for a while now. She had noticed her mood was improving greatly, and this worried her. Promises of better days ahead and hope for a brighter tomorrow was often something that left her disappointed when the darkness remained. Hope wasn't a guarantee. Nothing in life was, but death. But even those morbid thoughts couldn't shake her mind from the obvious truth: she felt better.

It had taken a lot of work to get her there. She was on four different medications for pain, two for the chronic nausea, and three to keep her alive. She was also on a head med, because tough times are difficult to go through, and the quick thought entered into her head, "What if I could come off of that too?" But then she quickly corrected herself, "No! Don't think that! Mustn't think that! No getting hopes up! Hopes hurt..." And she pushed the thought from her head before she could day-dream about it. If that day came to pass, it would come to pass. Anticipating it didn't help.

"Oooohhh sometimes... I get a good feeling. Yeah." The combination of drugs was working, and it wasn't a combination of drugs that was going to affect her thinking. Hallelujah! This was better thank what she had hoped for in terms of pain care. Her case had been so difficult for so long, forcing pain doctor after pain doctor to tell her, "I'm sorry, we have nothing left for you..." But an old medication that had stopped working had started working again at a lower dose, and a breakthrough in her diagnosis had led to the discovery of two other pain medications she could use. Now all of this in combination had her blasting through limitations she used to have before and waking up the next day not much worse off than the day before. It was almost like being healthy. "I get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before, oh, no. I get a good feeling, yeah.

Granted, it had only been a week of activity on the new medications, but what a week! Every day was used for activities. That was unheard of. She was traveling and not falling apart at her destination---a ten-year first. If she could keep stringing together days like this, she'd be a force of nature! Physical therapy had already been going well for a month, but now she could tell her therapists to really push it---she had endurance again. "Oooohhh sometimes... I get a good feeling. Yeah." It had been a long, hard climb, but things were finally looking... (what was the word she was looking for?) ... manageable.

She'd known that she hadn't looked sick for a long time, but now she was beginning to feel it consistently... reliably... even under very taxing conditions. Things were starting to look somewhat normal again."I get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before, oh, no. I get a good feeling, yeah. She'd been working at home at a steady pace and was starting to trust her ability to manage her symptoms so that they were completely invisible. She was starting to be able to behave like a really, real adult again. That's what was helping her mood the most: being able to be responsible towards herself and other people again.